Farsight's Official Pre-1980 Poll

[Crazy_Kong]

All of them - Please!

 

[pm1109]

When will this poll close

 

[fromduc]

In a modern world, there should NEVER have any vote or poll with only one round, doing a 2nd round between the 2 tables with more votes on round 1 would be by far the fairest way to procede.

 

[wolfson]

first past the post,no dragging things on.

 

[Kratos3]

I'm sure FS is trying to balance putting out an earlier(ie. less popular in the view of some) table and also giving people what they want. Xenon is clearly the table most people want. However, I'm with fromduc. Another round would be the fairest way to go, and would ensure a proper winner.

 

[Pinball_wiz_05401]

Williams Flash – 1979 has my vote. 19,505 produced and they could have made more. Flash - 1979 was the first pinball to have background audio that increased in pitch as you achieved game objectives and also the first pinball to have flashing lamps during game play as well.
It paved the way to other classics such as Gorgar, etc. Paragon probably has the best game play on this list however very lame audio and Bally’s Xenon was officially released in November, 1980. Xenon’s back glass art was fantastic… game play was very average… however, Suzanne Ciani’s vocal talents were a plus… “Try a tube shot…”

Internet Pinball Machine Database link- http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=871

AUDIO sample link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNiMNH1MHk
VIDEO sample link (1 min 47 sec)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAum3nj8gcc
A PRESTINE condition Williams Flash pinball video link– I WANT IT! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j0y3wqjsB0

 

[Reagan Dow]

In a modern world, there should NEVER have any vote or poll with only one round, doing a 2nd round between the 2 tables with more votes on round 1 would be by far the fairest way to procede.

I'm with you all the way on this! FarSight, please pay attention to this!!

 

[ksmmspt]

I voted Paragon. Love the wide body play and the difficulty. I doubt they could be able to reproduce the difficulty of the 5x saucer shot since in real life very hard shots almost never make it into the saucer. But Id love to see them try! Xenon is not pre 1980!!!!

 

[Eric Hall]

I still think the poll should be open to only people over 45. Seems a few people are voting on artwork only or looks of the machine. Xenon was a door opener put at the front door of the Arcade to pull victims in. As for playing it, well as said before it was not a great machine or an average machine, it was on the lower end as you played it once and moved on. Paragon was another machine that always seemed slow and needed a lot of shakeing to get the ball to go were you wanted it to go. I seriously doubt you can get the nudge to work well or as needed to work to make Paragon playable in any electronic form. I do think you have some winners on the list Fireball is one. It used to eat lots of my quarters. But to get back to something that has that true pre 80s feel it would be FLASH. As anyone would know that is over 45 when you went to the arcade FLASH was the game to play, Quarters lined up on the glass for next player etc. and once GorGar made the show both acted like book ends at the Arcade eating Quarters like mad. On some days beating the new kids on the block with a tube needed to play them. sorry Space Invaders, Galaxing and Astroids.

 

[Funkbox]

It does look like Xenon will win, but that allows me to vote for another machine I think is outstanding. In this case it was Joker Poker. I have seen a few of these machines off and on over the years, and had forgotten about them. As soon as I read Xenon, I heard "My name is Xenon" in my head, so that's a pretty good choice!

 

[Funkbox]

By the by, I had mentioned Meteor once. September 1979. Pretty awesome machine.
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1580

 

[Crawley]

Anyone know if Farsight has officially commented on that yet? All I know is the list that Mike gave me.

To me it seems like too many people are getting hung up on the semantics of the name of the poll. It's the poll they wanted to do and the table choices they decided to include.

Although I'm not personally that excited about Xenon or Paragon they didn't have to do a community choice in the first place. I think a lot of people are missing that fact.

So my vote would be to just leave it be and not make this any more complicated than it needs to be. Would rather encourage more community choices than have this become more trouble than its worth to repeat in the future.

 

[daneman20]

The more I think about this poll, the more I am thinking that perhaps Farsight had some electromechanical pins in mind when they started this. It looks like they want to add to the two they already have: Big Shot & Central Park. While Xenon looks very pretty, it's not all that different from a lot of what Farsight offers now. I mean we got some awesome pins like Dracula, Fish Tales, High Speed, etc. I am thinking that this is an opportunity to do something different for a change. Consider that we are going to be getting aa lot more of what we already like soon anyway with AF, ST and the like. While the old electromechanical pins don't have the same kind of fast play that the modern pins do, they are by no means boring (well some are). It would be nice to see an old classic like Friendship 7, Bronco, or the like. I am changing my vote to anything electromechanical. I do not always need bells and whistles. Just my opinion.

 

[Pinball_wiz_05401]

I still think the poll should be open to only people over 45. Seems a few people are voting on artwork only or looks of the machine. Xenon was a door opener put at the front door of the Arcade to pull victims in. As for playing it, well as said before it was not a great machine or an average machine, it was on the lower end as you played it once and moved on. Paragon was another machine that always seemed slow and needed a lot of shakeing to get the ball to go were you wanted it to go. I seriously doubt you can get the nudge to work well or as needed to work to make Paragon playable in any electronic form. I do think you have some winners on the list Fireball is one. It used to eat lots of my quarters. But to get back to something that has that true pre 80s feel it would be FLASH. As anyone would know that is over 45 when you went to the arcade FLASH was the game to play, Quarters lined up on the glass for next player etc. and once GorGar made the show both acted like book ends at the Arcade eating Quarters like mad. On some days beating the new kids on the block with a tube needed to play them. sorry Space Invaders, Galaxing and Astroids.

I'm over 45... unfortunately. I agree with your post. Xenon got to be boring very fast back in the day. I like drop targets which is why I'm partial to Paragon's game play but my passion for pinball really began with the release of Williams FLASH - 1979. It truly did raise the bar in commercial pinball development.

 

[Eric Hall]

Yes. I do love the drop target games. Flash, Volley, Sinbad, Count Down, Hulk, Playboy etc. etc. The lane shooters were you just have to do the same thing over and over again get old but the young kiddies love them. So I would be happy with some real target type games. And we have a few on the list. I would also like to see some good old 3 chime type machines too. Art work does not make the game and we have some real bad games with great art work and some real good games with poor art work. I would rather play a game with poor art that plays well than a game that is all eye candy and plays like a dog. Multi ball is another thing, does it make a good game or is it a gimmick? Black Knight is a peek machine. It had all the things needed to be a great machine and prety much every pinball gimmick at the time but all blended well into one game. Black Knight is hard to beat. So would I rather play a Pinball Machine that is a Pinball Machine or the new glorified lane shooters loaded with tone of gimmicks that just do not work and seem to be doing the same shot over and over again. Ask the over 45 crowed that grew up with pinball and let them pick.

 

[sedated]

Although I'm not personally that excited about Xenon or Paragon they didn't have to do a community choice in the first place. I think a lot of people are missing that fact.

I voted for Xenon but IMO we really shouldn't be grateful for having ONE poll where we can pick an old table. There should be more of them in TPA to begin with. How many more Lawlor and DMD Bally/Williams tables do we really need?

 

[SuperKaladrax]

I'm not sure why it would have to be 45+. My favourite machines are Big Shot and Genie, and I voted Centigrade 37 in this poll. In the earlier unofficial one I voted Joker Poker only because C37 wasn't there. I'm dying for more EMs, and especially target EMs. But to be honest, anything that isn't a 1990s+ video game with a pinball attached and a million toys will do. Those might be fine tables and all, but there is rather a glut of them and some balance with older EM and SS is well past due.

 

[IGoFirstIndy]

The more I think about this poll, the more I am thinking that perhaps Farsight had some electromechanical pins in mind when they started this. It looks like they want to add to the two they already have: Big Shot & Central Park. While Xenon looks very pretty, it's not all that different from a lot of what Farsight offers now. I mean we got some awesome pins like Dracula, Fish Tales, High Speed, etc. I am thinking that this is an opportunity to do something different for a change. Consider that we are going to be getting aa lot more of what we already like soon anyway with AF, ST and the like. While the old electromechanical pins don't have the same kind of fast play that the modern pins do, they are by no means boring (well some are). It would be nice to see an old classic like Friendship 7, Bronco, or the like. I am changing my vote to anything electromechanical. I do not always need bells and whistles. Just my opinion.

If you're on IOS and you like older tables check out the Zaccaria Pinball App by ASK Homework.

 

[Bowflex]

By the by, I had mentioned Meteor once. September 1979. Pretty awesome machine.
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1580

That's a really good table! I had to double check the dates on sterns to see if catacomb or seawitch would be eligible but meteor is the one table that popped up as pre 1980. I would have probably not voted but it would have been nice to be on the list!

 

[MontanaFrank]

I think that Xenon is best for the maybe upcoming Pinball After Dark. IMO opinion the reason that Xenon is winning because most of the art work is very, very provocative. It seems to me that people are voting for this table because of the hormones produced by the images on the table and not the gameplay. That's just my thought.

I've watched game play of both machines on PAPA and YouTube and In my humble opinion, the game play of Paragon looks a lot more fun to me than the game play of Xenon.

I still would like to have a runoff for the top three tables voted for in this poll. Let's call this poll a Primary Election and the voting for the top three the General Election.

Pretty Please With Sugar-On-Top; Farsight, let's have a top three run-off.